Follow-up – WAA
A new study finds that cutting down on processed meat consumption could help prevent diabetes, cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer.
A team from the University of Edinburgh’s Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems, in collaboration with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, has developed a simulation tool to estimate the health impacts of reducing consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat.
The researchers used data from the National Health Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to create an accurate simulation that included a group of adults in the United States.
The team estimated how changes in meat consumption would affect adults’ risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer and death. The effects were assessed for the overall population, and separately for age, sex, household income and ethnicity.
In addition to preventing more than 350,000 cases of diabetes, cutting processed meat intake by 30% would result in fewer cases of cardiovascular disease (about 92,500 fewer cases) and colorectal cancer (53,300 fewer cases) over a decade, the researchers say.
Reducing consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat by 30% was found to result in 1,073,400 fewer cases of diabetes, 382,400 fewer cases of cardiovascular disease, and 84,400 fewer cases of colorectal cancer.
Reducing unprocessed red meat intake alone by 30% resulted in more than 732,000 fewer cases of diabetes, 291,500 fewer cases of cardiovascular disease, and 32,200 fewer cases of colorectal cancer.
The team says these estimates should be interpreted with caution, and more research is needed.
Source: Russia Today
